Speaker 1: I pitched stories for three decades, and I kept thinking
Speaker 1: my writings suck.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't my writing.
Speaker 1: I'm winning awards on Broadway, I'm winning Tony's, Obie's Drama critics,
Speaker 1: but I can't sell a script because they were Latin stories.
Speaker 3: Man, what's handed? Man? You got mar Shin, Besmall Lynch.
Speaker 4: Doug Hendrickson and Gavin knwsome and you're listening to politicals.
Speaker 3: You're going to be, you're known to be. So look, man,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna tell you like this. I had an interesting
Speaker 3: conversation with this very smart gentleman, and he told me
Speaker 3: not to be speaking on shit and just let shit
Speaker 3: happen organically. And then all of a sudden I heard
Speaker 3: I'm being what is that ship called endorsed? I'm being
Speaker 3: endorsed by the fucking governor of California around for mayor
Speaker 3: of Oakland. So you know, I don't know if how
Speaker 3: this how this uh, how wise this wise man is
Speaker 3: who told me to let this shit happen organically?
Speaker 5: I told you.
Speaker 4: I got a bunch of people called me, their potential
Speaker 4: opponents of yours, saying is this real?
Speaker 3: What the hell's going on?
Speaker 5: This is BS? I love mar Sean, but what the hell?
Speaker 5: You can't be serious about.
Speaker 3: This like that? But I am, though, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean? Like, so, man, I be listening to these uh,
Speaker 3: these politicians and shit, man, and you know I ain't
Speaker 3: I ain't into all of that shit. But you know
Speaker 3: when I be listening to them talk and they be
Speaker 3: saying all this shit, and I be wondering, like, well, well,
Speaker 3: how much of that is gonna you know, I mean
Speaker 3: benefit people of color that look like me, like I
Speaker 3: don't never hear no plan on how that shit go.
Speaker 3: And then they say a lot of bullshit that don't
Speaker 3: really mean nothing, but it sound good because they could
Speaker 3: formulate a sentence with all these big ass words that
Speaker 3: don't nobody understand. And I really just be looking at
Speaker 3: him like bitch ass y'all.
Speaker 6: Well, gap, here's the deal. Remember we saw the guy
Speaker 6: in San Quentin. There's nobody better in Oakland to start
Speaker 6: with the youth of the city, in all parts of Oakland.
Speaker 4: I mean the guy, the guy from Oakland that we
Speaker 4: met in San que Yes, that's.
Speaker 5: Yeah, twenty five to life, two different paths, correct.
Speaker 6: But my point is for Marshawn, there's nobody I know
Speaker 6: on this planet that can step into Oakland and know
Speaker 6: the soil and know the blocks, and know every corner
Speaker 6: store and every restaurant and every shop and every building
Speaker 6: in every high school than Marshawn. And what's better to
Speaker 6: start with having someone who knows everything about the city
Speaker 6: to fix the city.
Speaker 4: What about figuring out the tools which you fix the city.
Speaker 5: Understanding how government and governing work.
Speaker 6: Well, that's that's part of your job.
Speaker 3: As his campaign, I got a mother Yeah, I'm saying,
Speaker 3: I got a motherfucker who's sitting right across from me
Speaker 3: right now, who got the blueprint to this shit. It's like,
Speaker 3: come on, bro, you gotta quit selling me short.
Speaker 4: Though I'm not selling you short. I'm just I'm just
Speaker 4: I'm playing devil's advocate. I'm just telling you what your
Speaker 4: opponents will. They're gonna come after you on this point.
Speaker 4: He has no governing experience. What the hell are we
Speaker 4: doing with an outsider, even if he's from Oakland and
Speaker 4: he's the insider as it relates to everything happening outside
Speaker 4: of city.
Speaker 3: Hall, but not you know, I answer that question, yes, sir,
Speaker 3: teck me. I got the governor on my side. What
Speaker 3: you're talking about.
Speaker 6: You know, it was our partner here's birthday the other
Speaker 6: day and we had some good.
Speaker 5: Ye years old forty nine years old.
Speaker 6: We enjoyed a good little boozy lunch. More Sean, we
Speaker 6: had a few drinks at tequila for you since we
Speaker 6: know you're on set in New Mexico and you can.
Speaker 3: Man, I put one up for you. I had him
Speaker 3: bring me in a bottle specifically after I sent you
Speaker 3: to the happy Birthday, I went and had me and
Speaker 3: shot for you, big dog. You know what I mean,
Speaker 3: I really appreciate it, but I will tell you this much. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean on a more serious note. And y'all know
Speaker 3: how I don't like to be too seriou is. But
Speaker 3: you know that whole thing with the mayor ship and
Speaker 3: all that, like you know, I mean, I got, I
Speaker 3: got excited as fuck, and I'm like, damn, you know what,
Speaker 3: you know, I might be able to make a change
Speaker 3: and do something you know, really uh really exciting for
Speaker 3: you know, for my sitting and ship. And I was
Speaker 3: thinking to myself like, damn, you know what, man if
Speaker 3: I could get you know, the support and the love
Speaker 3: you know, I mean from Gavin and you know, really,
Speaker 3: you know, sit down and really get into this ship.
Speaker 3: But then when I seen you come on set today
Speaker 3: and I seen that you had on some panda dunks,
Speaker 3: I was like, if that motherfucker was to come and
Speaker 3: meet me with them shoes on, before he could open,
Speaker 3: before he open his mouth, I would send that motherfucker
Speaker 3: right to god Damn shoe palace, uh pay less shoe store,
Speaker 3: Marshall's Ross and we would have to go and give
Speaker 3: a fuck if you came in some water marcuss. But
Speaker 3: we gonna get you up out of the pandas thought,
Speaker 3: my boy.
Speaker 6: What about what about my Snoop? What about my Snoop
Speaker 6: sketchers with the with the dope smoke in the box.
Speaker 3: You don't even have to tie them, you know what,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna just say like this, my boy fresh, you
Speaker 3: know I love the ship out of Snoop, But I'm
Speaker 3: gonna just say them, uh them are for health reasons.
Speaker 3: To the reason, and why you keep stepping in them
Speaker 3: like that? You got some you got some ship going
Speaker 3: on with your feet and your ankles and everything, so.
Speaker 5: You can't bet down, You can't help you use fingers anymore.
Speaker 3: You get a pass with those What the hell?
Speaker 5: By the way. I'm serious.
Speaker 4: I'm a little offended on behalf of Nike, my sponsor.
Speaker 4: What is wrong with these shoes?
Speaker 3: What is wrong with It's not nothing wrong but the
Speaker 3: pandas though there. That's like, that's like, that's like a them,
Speaker 3: a one and done. You throw them on one time
Speaker 3: and then you you throw them motherfuckers away, donate them
Speaker 3: Salvation Army, uh Buffalo exchange, good will one of them
Speaker 3: type of ones like that. So after this you retire
Speaker 3: the motherfuckers. And then what we do is you let
Speaker 3: me know what's and then we get you on some
Speaker 3: right feats so you could be official.
Speaker 4: My boy, what are you wearing right now? You're talking
Speaker 4: a big game. I want to see your damn shoes?
Speaker 3: Man, Man, I got the I got the Baltimorees on
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 5: I don't even know what the hell that is?
Speaker 1: What is that?
Speaker 3: You know? Some slight?
Speaker 5: Damn I didn't know those are legit? Are you gonna
Speaker 5: wear those once twice? I'm seriously no.
Speaker 3: Bs, No, I actually work out in needs all right.
Speaker 6: Bill Moreshawn, real talk. We're gonna get our ten point
Speaker 6: agenda together. We're gonna have a meeting ten points tomorrow
Speaker 6: or Monday with me and the governor here and we're
Speaker 6: to get our ten point agenda talking points.
Speaker 4: Childcare, healthcare, education, public safety, UH, redevelopment.
Speaker 5: I'm talking about.
Speaker 6: Parks and Rex and reck. I mean everything from just
Speaker 6: getting the hoops up with nets and refurbished to start there.
Speaker 5: There should not be a basketball hoop that doesn't have
Speaker 5: a brand new day.
Speaker 4: Well, there is an opening, right If you don't have
Speaker 4: a net, that means you don't give a damn about
Speaker 4: the community. You got to keep it.
Speaker 5: I mean to me, it's a symbol, simple thing.
Speaker 4: Something As I going to school and I don't see
Speaker 4: basketball net, I'm like, this is not a well managed school.
Speaker 6: Marshaun, I got a specialist rate for you. Born in Bogata, Columbia,
Speaker 6: grew up in Queens. An unbelievable comedian, actor, producer, activist,
Speaker 6: icon from some incredible movies like Mulin Rouge and John Wick,
Speaker 6: one of your favorites. Let's welcome in the incredible John Leguizamo. Hey, Hey,
Speaker 6: he's happy about the Mets right now, isn't he?
Speaker 1: John? Who is not happy about the Mets?
Speaker 6: Were you there the other night?
Speaker 1: Nah? I'm in DC putting up a play doing with
Speaker 1: some theater to what I'm doing theater. Yeah, I wrote
Speaker 1: my next theater pieces here at Arena and DC.
Speaker 3: Gang as tight as.
Speaker 4: John is not just like writer producer, I mean theater.
Speaker 4: That's where real actors come from.
Speaker 3: Look, hey, Gavin, don't be bro. You ain't got to
Speaker 3: be a hater all your life. Gavin's okay, let it
Speaker 3: bring right.
Speaker 2: I like hater. I like haters. They keep you fresh,
Speaker 2: keep you on your toes.
Speaker 5: That's right, that's right.
Speaker 4: John Marshawn thinks he's like a celebrity actor.
Speaker 5: Now he's like, he's like he's getting into this.
Speaker 4: He's filming right now in New Mexico, not California, which
Speaker 4: is all another conversation around.
Speaker 2: Have that conversation. Have that conversation, right, business.
Speaker 3: I know I'll watching on that.
Speaker 4: Stay tuned in January, I'll be doing some good things.
Speaker 4: Get you back from New York, get back to California.
Speaker 3: Hey, big dog, can you just tell me how to
Speaker 3: pronounce your mass name the right way?
Speaker 1: No, No, don't try. You're gonna get and it's gonna
Speaker 1: hurt you.
Speaker 3: That's all right. I'm here, all right.
Speaker 1: If you're willing to take the risk.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let me turn off speaker up directly ahead.
Speaker 1: Leg LEGI, this is good, that's perfect. Ten minutes it
Speaker 1: goes away. It fades, all.
Speaker 3: Right, I put it out there, I put the demo down,
Speaker 3: so I'm all good with that.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, John, one thing that hasn't faded is
Speaker 4: your career, which is next level.
Speaker 5: I mean, it is no BS like I thought.
Speaker 4: We all kind of feel like we know you, uh
Speaker 4: anyone obviously that has been around for the last few decades.
Speaker 4: But it is a hell of a thing when you
Speaker 4: start adding up the number of movies, the incredible work
Speaker 4: you've done on Broadway one man shows and all these
Speaker 4: Netflix series, the thing you just did to MSNBC last year,
Speaker 4: and now of course we'll talk about PBS and this
Speaker 4: extraordinary work you're doing.
Speaker 1: Gavin, I'm a big.
Speaker 5: Hell of a career, brother, hell of a career.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't easy getting here.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I was a problem child in Jackson and I's Queens
Speaker 1: during White Flight, which wasn't easy either because every white
Speaker 1: group that was leaving beat me up. But then all
Speaker 1: my Latin people came up and they beat me up too,
Speaker 1: so I could never get they must be maybe I'm
Speaker 1: the problem, you know, I could be the missing link,
Speaker 1: you know. And it was tough. This industry was not easy, man.
Speaker 1: It was not easy to be a Latin man in
Speaker 1: this industry, and I'm sure it wasn't easy being a
Speaker 1: black man either. But you know, I persevered and I
Speaker 1: went to places that did accept me, which was performance
Speaker 1: ard in theater and comedy clubs where there was a
Speaker 1: little less systemic racism going on. Because Joe, when I
Speaker 1: when I started up, uh, there was a thing called
Speaker 1: the casting breakdown every Monday, and it would tell you
Speaker 1: what rows were available. It was like Jim Crow a
Speaker 1: little bit because it would be white lead, white romantic,
Speaker 1: white doctor, white lawyer, Latin drug dealer. And even if
Speaker 1: you asked your agent, even if you had a big agent,
Speaker 1: and you asked, can you please let them let them
Speaker 1: I want to do my monologue ball them, Well, they
Speaker 1: won't see you. They won't see you because they said
Speaker 1: white guy. So you know, it was it was like that.
Speaker 1: So you know, I knew this system was rigged against me.
Speaker 1: So I was gonna have to try to find my
Speaker 1: opportunities wherever I could find them.
Speaker 4: But John, you've been calling out, I mean for as
Speaker 4: much as changed, not a lot has changed, right or
Speaker 4: do you feel like that's it's beginning to change. I
Speaker 4: mean you've been you haven't been shy calling this out,
Speaker 4: the lack of progress as it relates to representation, as
Speaker 4: it relates to opportunities.
Speaker 5: I mean it's it's you know.
Speaker 4: For as for as much progress as we've seen, I
Speaker 4: think people are surprised to see how few lead roles,
Speaker 4: particularly for Latin and latinos.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Gavin, that's a great question because things
Speaker 1: are better, but did not better enough, because Latin people
Speaker 1: are twenty percent of the population but with less than
Speaker 1: five percent of the leading roles, with thirty percent of
Speaker 1: the US box office sometimes even more on the big
Speaker 1: hits for almost forty percent. Sometimes that's a huge amount
Speaker 1: of money that were given the industry and only getting
Speaker 1: five percent of the leads, one percent of the stories
Speaker 1: being told, less than points zero something of the executives.
Speaker 1: That's not parody, that's not equity. That's not fair, and
Speaker 1: it's not like we land people just got here. This
Speaker 1: has been going on forever. Man. When the founding fathers
Speaker 1: of Hollywood got to LA in the early nineteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: it had just been Mexico seventy years prior. They walked
Speaker 1: into an almost Latin city, almost completely Latin city. Of course,
Speaker 1: it was kind of apartheid because Latin people and Black
Speaker 1: people were segregated, We were redlined, We were being experimented on.
Speaker 1: Latin women were being sterilized against their will and not
Speaker 1: against their knowledge, lynchings against Latin and black people. You know,
Speaker 1: Latin people are being shot, burned alive. I mean, there
Speaker 1: was a lot of terrible things going on when the
Speaker 1: founding fathers came, but they didn't even think of, oh,
Speaker 1: let's include the culture that's right here. They didn't, and
Speaker 1: it didn't you know, it's been going on for you know,
Speaker 1: for the beginning, since the beginnings of Silent Film.
Speaker 4: And John I'm curious, I mean, in your own exploration
Speaker 4: of all of this, and as you dove much deeper
Speaker 4: with so many of these projects in the last few years,
Speaker 4: were you even surprised at how bad that history was
Speaker 4: to uncover it. I mean, you talk about lynchings, we
Speaker 4: don't typically connect that to the Latino community.
Speaker 5: You think about the African American.
Speaker 4: Beauty sterilizations, as you say, and the redlining, which is
Speaker 4: so sort of dominant in our least culture that it's
Speaker 4: predominantly an African American issue. Were you surprised to the
Speaker 4: depths of that kind of discrimination.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, obviously black people have had it much
Speaker 1: worse than Latin people. You know, it's not a competition,
Speaker 1: and I'm not trying to make it that over nine
Speaker 1: thousand black people were lynched more for us, it was
Speaker 1: six thousand Latin people, So you know, it's lesser numbers.
Speaker 1: But you know, you know, the second most brutalized by
Speaker 1: the police are Latinos. The second largest ethnic group in
Speaker 1: jails are Latinos. You know, the lowest paid worker in
Speaker 1: America is a Latin woman. You know what I mean? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, finding out these facts of the horrors that
Speaker 1: happened to Latin people, because you wonder, we've been here forever.
Speaker 1: It's not we just got here, the smith that we've
Speaker 1: just got here. No, we keep coming, but we've been
Speaker 1: here forever. And why aren't we at a higher place?
Speaker 1: Why and we are at top of the pyramids somehow?
Speaker 1: Well because of all these things, you know, our land
Speaker 1: wealth was taken from us, our political power was taken
Speaker 1: from us, you know, and we were segregated.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: The first case bought in America against segregation was the
Speaker 1: Latin family, the Maestas family in Denver, Colorado, in nineteen eleven.
Speaker 1: The first young boy lynch in America was a Latino
Speaker 1: boy in nineteen fourteen, a fourteen year old Antonio Gomez,
Speaker 1: for respecting a white man in Texas. The first woman
Speaker 1: lynch in America was a latinas Joseppa Segovia during the
Speaker 1: Gold Rush in California, because a white minor raped her
Speaker 1: and she shot him, but because she wouldn't show remorse,
Speaker 1: they lynched her. So yeah, we let people have experienced
Speaker 1: a lot of oppression, and that's probably why. Also it's
Speaker 1: not in history textbooks, because you put that in history textbooks,
Speaker 1: then you've got to give us political power. You gotta
Speaker 1: respect us, You got to give us something back for
Speaker 1: our contributions in making of America.
Speaker 5: Marshaw. And I imagine a lot of that resonates with you.
Speaker 3: Huh, Yeah, dude, considered in our history. And I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, and I think especially in California. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm not sure it is all through California, but I
Speaker 3: know in northern California, like I fucked with my meagles, Like,
Speaker 3: I got a lot of a lot of uh fucking
Speaker 3: primos that I just I resonate with that I fucked
Speaker 3: with like so I mean, and then you know, they
Speaker 3: grew up in the same neighborhood with us. It's like
Speaker 3: where I lived out on fifty fifth and foot Hill,
Speaker 3: it was what they called it, uh, the Green Apartments,
Speaker 3: which was where the Blacks was at, and then right
Speaker 3: next door it was the Mexican Apartments. And I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, the same struggles that that we were dealing with,
Speaker 3: they was dealing with it as well. And I mean
Speaker 3: just that area alone, it was it was the ship
Speaker 3: was tough, but it was also you know of hard
Speaker 3: workers and individuals who you know, I mean held family
Speaker 3: to a standard where you know, I mean, and we
Speaker 3: started to see like when they called the fucking police,
Speaker 3: they would come to both apartment buildings, and that ship
Speaker 3: was young. I mean, it was something that you know,
Speaker 3: I mean our witness growing up and I've seen. But
Speaker 3: you know, when you start speaking to the you know,
Speaker 3: the history of Latin culture, like you know, they don't
Speaker 3: teach that in schools and they don't tell us too
Speaker 3: much about that. And now you start to see like
Speaker 3: they're even starting to erase, like you know, the black
Speaker 3: the black history of all of that ship in school.
Speaker 3: It's crazy to me because we're sitting here with the
Speaker 3: governor and it's like, Bro, you act like you don't
Speaker 3: know that that ship going on, Like who the f
Speaker 3: I know them? Ship has come across your desk. When
Speaker 3: you see that ship, I think you got to think
Speaker 3: in your mind, like, oh ship, John and Marshan wouldn't
Speaker 3: approve of this ship. We can't let this we.
Speaker 4: Got I mean, it's as John was just saying, it's
Speaker 4: c rt uh ESG, it's d e I.
Speaker 5: Anything with three damn letters.
Speaker 3: It seems to yeah, man, the alphabet boys.
Speaker 4: Man, no, it's but man, no, this is but it's
Speaker 4: a real it's a real thing.
Speaker 5: You're right.
Speaker 4: They're trying to rewrite history, censor historical facts. They were
Speaker 4: John's well aware, and in Florida a couple of years ago,
Speaker 4: they actually had textbooks that were changed as it relates
Speaker 4: to the civil rights movement with Rosa Parks, and they
Speaker 4: took out her race as if her race was relevant
Speaker 4: in the context of the civil rights movement. But John's
Speaker 4: going a deeper point which is it's one thing to
Speaker 4: censor those historical factor to rewrite history, but a lot
Speaker 4: of the Latino history was never even written.
Speaker 5: There's not even a lot to a race.
Speaker 4: And I imagine a big part of what you're trying
Speaker 4: to do with American historia and others is really start
Speaker 4: to tell that story so that we can get our
Speaker 4: history straight.
Speaker 1: Johns Hopkins University and you need those US did a
Speaker 1: study and found that eighty seven percent of Latino contributions
Speaker 1: into the making of the US are not in history
Speaker 1: textbooks and the thirteen percent that is gets the less
Speaker 1: than five sentences. So yeah, what I was trying to
Speaker 1: do with my show, The Until History of Latinos on
Speaker 1: PBS was to correct that, to stop the erasure, the
Speaker 1: crossing out, the deletion of our contributions, because you know,
Speaker 1: it's systemic, and when we Latin people don't know what
Speaker 1: we've contributed, we have less power. When other people don't
Speaker 1: know our contributions, they have less respect for us, and
Speaker 1: then things can happen like being demonized, like Trump demonizes
Speaker 1: us and says he's going to deport ten million or
Speaker 1: more Latinos. That's a horrible that's a horror thing for me.
Speaker 1: I mean, because how you're going to police that, You're
Speaker 1: going to profile all Latin people and even American citizens,
Speaker 1: which has happened in American history. It's not the first time.
Speaker 1: The Repatriation Act in the nineteen thirties deported two million people,
Speaker 1: more than half were American citizens, and they sent them
Speaker 1: to Mexico. And these people had never grown up there
Speaker 1: been there. They didn't even speak Spanish, but they were
Speaker 1: all Latino. They were profiled. And then happening in the
Speaker 1: wet Back Act in the nineteen fifties to the seventies,
Speaker 1: a million Latinos would deported and half of those were
Speaker 1: American citizens.
Speaker 2: So I'm afraid the same thing's gonna happen if Trump
Speaker 2: gets elected.
Speaker 3: If I make sure they really they really had an
Speaker 3: act called the Wetback Act.
Speaker 1: Yeah, can you believe that shit? They have the audainy.
Speaker 1: It could have been the Greaser Act, it could have
Speaker 1: been the Spick Act. I mean, it was horrorful.
Speaker 6: What year was that, John, the Wetback Act? I can't
Speaker 6: even believe that.
Speaker 1: Nineteen fifties governmenteen fifties.
Speaker 6: Okay, Yeah, So John, go let me ask a question.
Speaker 6: Growing up in queens. You're a fighter, it's been it's
Speaker 6: been known. You had to go fight, you had a scrap.
Speaker 6: Were you always the guy to your friend group that
Speaker 6: had the voice?
Speaker 1: You hit?
Speaker 3: You do? Now?
Speaker 6: Did you realize back then you were the guy that
Speaker 6: obviously threw the fist, which I appreciate, But did you
Speaker 6: also have the voice to get your crew together to
Speaker 6: try to fight against what you dealt with?
Speaker 1: No, let me let me make you a little correction.
Speaker 1: I wasn't a I was in a lot of fights,
Speaker 1: but I was on getting beat up.
Speaker 2: I want a few of them, but I didn't win
Speaker 2: a lot of them. I got beat up a lot.
Speaker 6: Well, by the way, By the way, John Gavin did too,
Speaker 6: he got bullied. He had to move. So haven't got
Speaker 6: beat up too. Marsham Marchean might have been doing the Marcia.
Speaker 5: He didn't understand what the hell we're talking about.
Speaker 3: And they share they share some uh some I think
Speaker 3: junior higher stories when they was a victims of bullying
Speaker 3: and they didn't fight back. No, I thought that.
Speaker 1: I thought that's why I got beat up, was because
Speaker 1: I fought back and I never backed down. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I guess I was looking for I guess I was
Speaker 1: looking for for for not shutting up or saying sorry
Speaker 1: or whatever. I never I never backed down. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you know made me strong. You know, if I hadn't
Speaker 1: grown up the way grew up in Jackson and Ice Queens,
Speaker 1: which was all white flight, but all Latino populations were
Speaker 1: there and black people, and we all grew up together
Speaker 1: in the same kind of problems. It made me strong.
Speaker 1: And I had community, you know, I black and Latinos.
Speaker 1: I felt, I had joy, I had laughter. I had
Speaker 1: problems as well, But yo, it's shaped me, and Hollywood
Speaker 1: can't hurt me. It cannot hurt to begin to hurt me,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So that's why Hollywood to me,
Speaker 1: it has always been hollywooden. But I've seen the problems
Speaker 1: in Hollywood. I've been in this business for four decades,
Speaker 1: and I saw what was going on. I saw what
Speaker 1: was going on, you know. I mean it wasn't okay.
Speaker 1: I mean, I pitched stories for three decades and I
Speaker 1: kept thinking my writings sucked, But it wasn't my writing.
Speaker 1: I'm winning awards on Broadway, I'm winning Tony's Obie's Drama critics,
Speaker 1: but I can't sell a script. Because they were Latin stories.
Speaker 1: And no matter if I wrote like William Goldman, if
Speaker 1: I wrote like Tony Kushner, they were not going to
Speaker 1: green light a Latin project, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: They were just never going to They never saw the
Speaker 1: value of Latin content. But now, luckily, with data and
Speaker 1: this digital revolution that we're in, is the best time
Speaker 1: to be a Latin person because now we got metrics,
Speaker 1: and when we have metrics, we Latin people win because
Speaker 1: you can't deny us, you know, facts, like like in baseball,
Speaker 1: you know, you see all these lad folks playing because
Speaker 1: you can't deny stats. And music we killed because you
Speaker 1: can't deny sales. But in show biz and in corporations
Speaker 1: and in tech industry, they can do that for jobs.
Speaker 1: They can do that because they can say it's it's
Speaker 1: all opinion based, it's all bias based, it's it's not
Speaker 1: based on fact.
Speaker 5: Was there a moment where you really found your voice?
Speaker 5: I mean, was it, uh, you know it was years
Speaker 5: ago or there was there.
Speaker 4: Sometimes a lot of shame and regret that you didn't
Speaker 4: find that voice earlier.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't have shame and regret because I didn't
Speaker 1: know what was going on. I just assumed that if
Speaker 1: you're a Latin man or a Latin person in America,
Speaker 1: you weren't going to get very far. You just score.
Speaker 1: And I mean when I was in NYU and I
Speaker 1: was a student paying the same tuition as Andrew McCarthy
Speaker 1: and dB Sweeney, they were going to five editions a day.
Speaker 1: I was going to win every five months for a
Speaker 1: drug dealer or a murderer or janitor. I knew. And
Speaker 1: I was idealistic, young man. I believe the meritocracy. I
Speaker 1: believe talent would win the date. But it wasn't. So
Speaker 1: no matter how talented I was, I could have been
Speaker 1: as good looking as Brad Kidd, I could have been
Speaker 1: as talented as Brandea, I was not going to get
Speaker 1: a job because I was a Latin man. And that
Speaker 1: I became very apparent, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 1: I had I didn't want to give up. But I
Speaker 1: know a lot of people gave up. I saw a
Speaker 1: lot of dreams that got wasted and thrown away, and
Speaker 1: people's lives that derailed because they believed in the American
Speaker 1: dream that wasn't for them.
Speaker 6: So John, one of my favorite movies of all time,
Speaker 6: Carlito's Ways. She kind of went from a stand up
Speaker 6: comedy right, and you got that? How did you get
Speaker 6: the role in Carlito's Way from being doing stand up comics?
Speaker 2: Well, my manager at the time, who was a horrible
Speaker 2: human being.
Speaker 6: Hey, Marshawn never by the way, Marshawn never called me
Speaker 6: as your main agent at home.
Speaker 2: No, he was a horrible crook and a harble person.
Speaker 1: But he met well and uh, you know he he
Speaker 1: he saw me, and they saw me do my comedy
Speaker 1: stuff and then on on HBO, and they offered me
Speaker 1: the role and I turned it down a lot because
Speaker 1: I was sick of playing drug dealers and I didn't
Speaker 1: want to denigrate with my people.
Speaker 2: But then when they offered it to Benicia, I took it.
Speaker 3: Interesting hold on so because the past, ah, the past?
Speaker 3: So was that one? Was that before this? Or was
Speaker 3: that after that?
Speaker 2: Was that was after?
Speaker 3: That?
Speaker 1: Was after? That was ninety seven and and Carlos Wave
Speaker 1: was ninety three.
Speaker 3: Man, I look, I'm a look, I'm a fan of
Speaker 3: a girl in min She she turned me on to
Speaker 3: the past, and I'm like, what the fuck? Like this
Speaker 3: ship is like, this motherfucker is crazy. But then I
Speaker 3: so like from The Pest to fucking to the Menu,
Speaker 3: just like the range that you have and when you
Speaker 3: speak about you know, the talent, and it's like there's
Speaker 3: there's no denying that. You know, you're a talented motherfucker.
Speaker 3: But you know what i mean from from me, like
Speaker 3: watching that and then seeing uh the Menu, I'm like, god, damn.
Speaker 3: But then I remember what was that? I think spawn
Speaker 3: and I'm like, oh yeah, yeah yeah, So I'm like damn,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, you know, I don't know if
Speaker 3: you would call it like uh, I mean, I know
Speaker 3: it's a superhero movie, but uh like to see you
Speaker 3: in that kind of role, like there's no denying your talent.
Speaker 3: Uh well special you are. Like. But I mean, once
Speaker 3: I've watched The Pest, then I'm like, oh, yeah, he
Speaker 3: got me hooked line and sink, like you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, where else where else can I go and
Speaker 3: watch this motherfucker? What else can I see? You know what
Speaker 3: I mean? See him doing this thing? Like that ship
Speaker 3: turned me up and I'm like this is some there's
Speaker 3: some there's some some some some good ship.
Speaker 1: Yeah that was some crazy ship. I didn't that, I mean,
Speaker 1: I was I was mad caffeinated because I don't do
Speaker 1: drugs anymore or you know, so I was it was
Speaker 1: all just capping soda, coke, sugar. I had to keep
Speaker 1: my energy level so high to keep that that that thing. Basically,
Speaker 1: the Past is the big Game where a great White
Speaker 1: hunter is looking for a trophy animal. But we made
Speaker 1: it this great White Hunters looking for a Puerto Rican
Speaker 1: to put on his mantle.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: No, I mean it's a fantastic movie.
Speaker 5: I agree with sew Hey, John, did you do?
Speaker 4: You started out and it was comedy the goal, and
Speaker 4: then all of this was sort of an evolution from the.
Speaker 5: Comedy or what when you were a kid? I mean,
Speaker 5: what what was the what was the pinnacle of success
Speaker 5: for you?
Speaker 4: I mean, did you see yourself as a comedian, as
Speaker 4: an actor, as a direct I mean, you know, you're
Speaker 4: you're filling the blank right now and every every single
Speaker 4: way you've you've done it produce, Seen the and the like.
Speaker 4: But was comedy the bedrock?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Comedy was what got me through my you know, painful childhood.
Speaker 1: I come from a lot of uh you know, uh
Speaker 1: child abuse and and whatnot, just violence, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: comedy helped me, you know, watching Richard pryor watching Evident Costello,
Speaker 1: Martin Lewis. I ate up all the comedy and I
Speaker 1: would go like I was. I was a ghetto nerd.
Speaker 1: So I would go to the library, the the Museum
Speaker 1: of Television Radio and watch Flip Wilson, watched the old
Speaker 1: Ernie Kovacs, and I studied them all man. And and
Speaker 1: to me, that was when I got freak on Broadway.
Speaker 1: That was it, man, That that to me was the
Speaker 1: pinnacle of my life in so many ways, because I
Speaker 1: felt like I helped change comedy in America, because the
Speaker 1: comedy at that time was kind of light and kind
Speaker 1: of glib and kind of shiny, and I brought a
Speaker 1: lot of pain and uh and sexuality, and you know,
Speaker 1: I introduced the jizz comedy, that something about Mary you
Speaker 1: saw that an American Pie and all that. But I
Speaker 1: was doing all that on stage, you know, put in
Speaker 1: my imagine every dick and Sandwiches playing with spooge all
Speaker 1: over the place. So there was a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: I was doing in this crazy show. But there was
Speaker 1: everybody was coming to the show, you know, Michael, you know,
Speaker 1: Michael Mayer, Robin Williams, rest in peace, you name it.
Speaker 1: Everybody was at that theater. It was incredible on Broadway
Speaker 1: and I was Tony nominated for a Writer and Performer.
Speaker 1: I lost.
Speaker 3: So you kind of win it and carved your own lane. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you had to had to respect.
Speaker 6: There were the ages back then. I know you called
Speaker 6: your manager a horrible manager? Were the ages back then?
Speaker 6: Did a lot of them? Pigeonhole? Like, did you guys
Speaker 6: have like a subset of managers that dealt with latinos
Speaker 6: and and this and that?
Speaker 3: Or was it?
Speaker 6: Did you have a lot of people to pick from?
Speaker 2: I think I had had a good group to pick from.
Speaker 1: I did. I mean, I got a great manager now,
Speaker 1: but the one I had back then was his fingali uh,
Speaker 1: you know, like a trickster. You know, he did a
Speaker 1: lot of underhanded stuff, like taking fifty percent of my
Speaker 1: HBO salary for my one man's shows and telling me that,
Speaker 1: you know, if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: gotten never got it. And so like I was young
Speaker 1: and stupid, so I was like, yeah, okay, yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess that's a trade off.
Speaker 3: Fifty dug my age alone, and I was I was
Speaker 3: fucking head over. He was like, why you get three percent,
Speaker 3: like what you're really doing, like saying you I ain't
Speaker 3: even ever even seen you throw a dn bood alone
Speaker 3: catch run, Like why are you getting so much? How
Speaker 3: are you getting so much? Doug Hey, we gonna have
Speaker 3: to go and talk about this. And Danny then he's
Speaker 3: sick that will from me his wife and she had
Speaker 3: to break some ship down for me. And I'm like, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, I like you a lot, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, I got a lot of respect for you.
Speaker 3: But three percent, God damn. And to hear that you
Speaker 3: was getting hit to here, you was getting here for
Speaker 3: fifty life.
Speaker 6: Oh the entertainer b business is different. They pay way,
Speaker 6: they pay way too much, right John, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean you know, I mean most of us, all
Speaker 1: the big timers. You know, you only get about a
Speaker 1: quarter of your salary because you've got ten percent agent,
Speaker 1: ten percent, manager, five percent, lawyer five percent for a
Speaker 1: business manager, and you know everybody else on on pay roll.
Speaker 1: So in taxes, I've had fifty percent tax brackets so
Speaker 1: in New York. So yeah, I get about twenty five
Speaker 1: percent of everything I make.
Speaker 3: Well, we like to blame a lot of shit on gas,
Speaker 3: so you can blame put.
Speaker 1: Too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, not just yeah, New York and California.
Speaker 4: We share a little bit of that in comment on
Speaker 4: the at least for you two that are on screen, well,
Speaker 4: with all three of you hold out, I'm the only
Speaker 4: I'm the public servant on this podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of like a public service.
Speaker 5: Really really sorry, John, I don't buy that.
Speaker 1: No, No, I get paid.
Speaker 2: I get paid.
Speaker 5: You doing all right?
Speaker 4: By the way, just you know what was the you
Speaker 4: know it's and I've just watched a lot of but
Speaker 4: a lot of the episodes of the MSNBC you did.
Speaker 4: I guess it was a year ago. Feels like right
Speaker 4: right yesterday and now with PBS, what did you I
Speaker 4: mean you wake up and say, you know what, I
Speaker 4: got to take this to the next level and just
Speaker 4: start educate people at a broader a in a you know,
Speaker 4: more broadly. Or is it because the politics of the
Speaker 4: moment that has sort of shaped your desire to do
Speaker 4: these projects or was this sort of again a natural
Speaker 4: part of your journey that for decades you've been expressing
Speaker 4: uh and understanding or a desire for other people to
Speaker 4: understand the history of Latin culture.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Gavin, I think it's a confluence of both things.
Speaker 1: You know, am I getting to be sixty years old?
Speaker 1: You know, you get to a point in life where
Speaker 1: you go, what what am I doing? My Life's what's
Speaker 1: the point of my life? And I feel like at
Speaker 1: the point of my life is to make this place
Speaker 1: a better place than when I came into it. And also,
Speaker 1: you know, all the things that happened in Black Lives
Speaker 1: Matter and and COVID and all that. You know, it
Speaker 1: just like it took it took me years to get
Speaker 1: the PBS, five years a little bit more than that
Speaker 1: to get it to this place. You know it it
Speaker 1: wasn't easy. But I felt when I read these facts.
Speaker 1: When I read these facts, it just blows my mind
Speaker 1: that and I felt like, oh my god, I can't
Speaker 1: be the only person who knows these facts. The world
Speaker 1: needs to know that we Land people are the only
Speaker 1: ethnic group that's fought in every single war America has
Speaker 1: ever had. Ten thousand unknown Latino patriots fought in the
Speaker 1: American Revolution. We helped fund the American Revolution. Two million
Speaker 1: dollars were given to George Washington from Cuba, Mexico and Spain.
Speaker 1: So we are we Land people as sons and daughters
Speaker 1: of the American Revolution. Twenty thousand US fought in the
Speaker 1: Civil War, one hundred and twenty thousand of US fought
Speaker 1: in World War five hundred thousand Latinos fought in World
Speaker 1: War Two.
Speaker 2: That's a huge.
Speaker 1: Sacrifice to the making of this country. We have sixty
Speaker 1: Medal of Honor honorees. That's the most of any ethnic group.
Speaker 1: But do we get credit for that? Do we? Do
Speaker 1: you see us in movies?
Speaker 3: Do you?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's crazy how erased our contributions are.
Speaker 6: It is amazing. Hey, Hey, John, your Emmy speech a
Speaker 6: couple of weeks ago is incredible in Hollywood? Do you
Speaker 6: feel that it seems like every Oscars or Emmys or
Speaker 6: award show people stand up and say something. But do
Speaker 6: you see the other three or sixty four days a
Speaker 6: year people fighting and doing what you're doing, or just
Speaker 6: giving their speech? Not you, but other people giving their
Speaker 6: speech and saying what they have to say? Are people
Speaker 6: living it daily? To help out with what you're doing
Speaker 6: now and other causes for other people?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 3: Uh? That? So how do we know?
Speaker 6: And John, how do we make that change? We've got
Speaker 6: more Shawn as an actor, now, how do we make
Speaker 6: that change?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's hard.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you when you start speaking up there,
Speaker 1: it's not consequence free. There are when I started getting political,
Speaker 1: you know, I lost half my followers and it's got
Speaker 1: so much hate. You know, people go back to they say,
Speaker 1: go back to Mexico. If you don't like our country,
Speaker 1: go I gladly go back to Mexico. I'm not from
Speaker 1: Mexico and I love to visit. But you know, they
Speaker 1: say all kinds of crazy things that tys telling you
Speaker 1: you suck as a comedian. You're boring now. I mean,
Speaker 1: whenever you start doing that, they hate and you lose
Speaker 1: the followers. So there is a consequence. So I understand
Speaker 1: why other people are reserved. It makes you know it's
Speaker 1: they're tend to tain, you know. And but you know,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm older. I'm an elder. I see
Speaker 1: what's going on, and so what was going on? I
Speaker 1: can't you can't pull the wool over my eyes.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 1: I know what the stats are, I know what the
Speaker 1: reality is, and I'm not going to shut up till
Speaker 1: I have parody for my people. You know, till till
Speaker 1: twenty percent of those were Latino, When twenty percent of
Speaker 1: those executives when twenty percent of the stories. I don't
Speaker 1: want thirty percent, which is what we over indexed at
Speaker 1: the box office. I just want we're twenty percent of
Speaker 1: the population. I just want twenty percent across the board.
Speaker 1: And I don't want it just in Hollywood. I want
Speaker 1: to in tech. I want it in banking. I wanted
Speaker 1: in corporations. I talked to a lot of executives across
Speaker 1: America and Latin. People tell me, yo, I'm good enough
Speaker 1: to train somebody who then gets promoted over me, but
Speaker 1: I'm not good enough to be promoted. I hear that
Speaker 1: all over the place.
Speaker 5: Joe, when did you start getting political?
Speaker 4: When did you really when you started getting that negative feedback,
Speaker 4: when you really started realizing this is going to come
Speaker 4: in a price.
Speaker 1: You know, I was always socially conscious, but I wasn't
Speaker 1: politically activated until I think. I think it was Al
Speaker 1: Gore when I started feeling like, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: got to start. When he lost and his peasants he
Speaker 1: was taken from him, I was like, I can't, I
Speaker 1: can't be quiet. Democracy is not a spectator sport. You
Speaker 1: got to participate, and you got to put out tons
Speaker 1: of effort to keep it a democracy.
Speaker 5: Amen, Justice Brandeis.
Speaker 4: I love the way you described said the most important
Speaker 4: office in a democracy is the office of citizen. This
Speaker 4: notion of active not inert citizenship, man, active participation, which.
Speaker 5: I just love that.
Speaker 4: It's not just about election days. It's what happens after
Speaker 4: and what happens before. It's everything in between. What you
Speaker 4: know right now though. Man, with an election, I don't
Speaker 4: want to get hyper political.
Speaker 3: But man, it's then you get it.
Speaker 4: But but we're talking about but Marsia, you're talking about
Speaker 4: history repeating itself. Man, back in Hoover days, about everybody
Speaker 4: being kicked out. You got the Wet Back Act, You've
Speaker 4: got all and now here we are. We thought we
Speaker 4: made all this damn progress in this country Californi, Marshawn.
Speaker 4: We're almost forty percent Latino California. It's a majority minority state,
Speaker 4: the most diverse state in the world's most diverse democracy.
Speaker 4: It's a deep point of pride and it's a principle
Speaker 4: which we're founded on, which allows us to thrive and
Speaker 4: be the fifth large damn economy in the world. Latinos
Speaker 4: in this country, by the way, about the fifth largest
Speaker 4: economy in the world just from a GDP over three
Speaker 4: point six plus trillion.
Speaker 5: Damn do cap T T.
Speaker 4: But right now there's another guy with a capital T
Speaker 4: that's scaring the hell out of everybody in this election.
Speaker 4: And we're talking about mass deportations, We're talking about mixed
Speaker 4: status families that are scared to death, we're talking about
Speaker 4: poisoning the blood of this country. And vermins the language. Man,
Speaker 4: I mean, you're you're kind of a mini historian now
Speaker 4: with all these there's documentaries you've been doing and all
Speaker 4: the work. I mean, this rhetoric is about as bad
Speaker 4: as it's ever been.
Speaker 1: Right, and hate crimes as Latinos are up a big
Speaker 1: surprise when he says stuff like that. I mean, you
Speaker 1: see veterans getting beat up in bars and stuff Latino
Speaker 1: vets because they tell you don't belong in this country.
Speaker 1: And then you know the vet is going on. But
Speaker 1: I thought to you and then pow pal. You know
Speaker 1: it just it's he brings so much violence into our country,
Speaker 1: so much hate that's unnecessary. I mean, decency is what
Speaker 1: we all want, pieces what we want. Togetherness is what
Speaker 1: most people want. But they're sold because he's a big liar.
Speaker 1: He's such a liar that people believe what he says,
Speaker 1: and he says he's going to bring jobs back in
Speaker 1: production backs, and he's making all this stuff up. He
Speaker 1: doesn't care, he wasn't doesn't want to be fact check
Speaker 1: because he's making it all up. It's all bullshit, but
Speaker 1: people buy it. People believe it. People believe the bullshit.
Speaker 4: Which is you know, begs the question, you know we
Speaker 4: talk about I mean, there's books now being written about it,
Speaker 4: and let's hope history is not going to be written
Speaker 4: about this in a few weeks. But talking about the
Speaker 4: fact that Trump and trump Ism is somehow and.
Speaker 5: He's making roads in the Latino community.
Speaker 4: I mean, is it because you just think just the
Speaker 4: rank lies or do you think get a combination of
Speaker 4: that and just economic issues, which are bread and butter issues.
Speaker 1: Always I think it's a common way for some reason,
Speaker 1: this inflation of the prices of goods, food and gas
Speaker 1: and housing. It affects Latin people because we're kind of
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the economic food change, so they're
Speaker 1: very effective by it. And Latinos care about, you know,
Speaker 1: feeding their families, and Latin women care about that. So
Speaker 1: who do they blame the person who's in office, you know,
Speaker 1: and Trump, you know, with all his magical speak, his
Speaker 1: magical thinkings speak of how he's going to fix everything
Speaker 1: and cut taxes. Everybody believes that that he's going to
Speaker 1: bring production back and bring jobs and stop China this,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's it's they believe, they buy it,
Speaker 1: they believe it. So it's kind of tough, man. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't think Latin people are really flipping totally Republican.
Speaker 1: But he gets them, you know, obviously they We're not
Speaker 1: a monolith, and there's a lot of a Christian Latinos,
Speaker 1: Evangelical Latinos, conservatives that we have them, you know. But
Speaker 1: from his rhetoric, you would think everybody would be just
Speaker 1: against him, but they're not. You know, the black community
Speaker 1: is aw some somehow moving up towards him too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they split. I think they could. They got they
Speaker 3: got turned on from out of the edd, the PvP
Speaker 3: and all of that shit.
Speaker 1: All.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Trump, don't give us some money.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep.
Speaker 3: We need to get Trump back at office so he
Speaker 3: could give us some money.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 4: When he started putting his name on those checks, people
Speaker 4: thought it was from him.
Speaker 1: And they believe that I've heard that people say, oh,
Speaker 1: but when he gets to be in office, we're going
Speaker 1: to get more of those checks that he signed.
Speaker 2: They really believed that his scams are sometimes they do work,
Speaker 2: they don't always work.
Speaker 5: But something there, John, you buy one of those hundred
Speaker 5: thousand dollars watches? You got one of those?
Speaker 1: I'm saving up for the Bible Trump.
Speaker 3: Also, somebody just sent me a picture of that. He
Speaker 3: got a watch and some and some shoes or some
Speaker 3: hundred K for the watch. Brother, What the fuck is
Speaker 3: that about.
Speaker 5: I've got my pandas on right now. But if I
Speaker 5: come in with some Trumps.
Speaker 3: Then I might sparkle kick your ass right in the chest.
Speaker 4: Hey, John, I was down in Mexico for the swearing
Speaker 4: in of the first one. And you know, I mean
Speaker 4: the Western we haven't had North America. We haven't had
Speaker 4: a woman sworn in. And I was with a good
Speaker 4: friend of yours, Rosario Dawson, who was down. She was
Speaker 4: down there film in a couple of days. But you
Speaker 4: you were one of the early founders of Voda Latino, right,
Speaker 4: were you there in the beginning.
Speaker 1: I was, I was helping, I mean I was I
Speaker 1: was always an ally to Rosario and my interest to
Speaker 1: Kumark for what they're doing, because they're brilliant, man. I mean,
Speaker 1: they really do the real work and very little of
Speaker 1: the money goes to them. It all goes right into groundwork,
Speaker 1: a grassroots organizing. You know, it's amazing. It's amazing what
Speaker 1: they do. And this woman is incredible, man, I mean,
Speaker 1: this woman president, she's I just find her so exciting,
Speaker 1: so progressive, lifting Mexico into the future. Mexico is doing
Speaker 1: incredible economically. Uh. And then you know, she called out.
Speaker 1: It was amazing. She asked Spain to apologize for the
Speaker 1: destruction of the aspects, the Incas and the Mayas. It
Speaker 1: was a amazing that And you know what the I
Speaker 1: think it was a Minister of culture. I can't remember
Speaker 1: exactly the dude who wrote the letter and said, you
Speaker 1: are an illiterate. We will never apologize for those horrific tribes.
Speaker 1: Now they always two apologies, one for that fucking letter
Speaker 1: and then one for the conquest.
Speaker 4: And by the way, the conquy, I mean you going
Speaker 4: back just you know the PBS series, which, by the way,
Speaker 4: you have a bunch of great you know, people like
Speaker 4: Rosario doing some of the narrative work, Edward Daman almost
Speaker 4: some others.
Speaker 5: Next level. I mean you go back to that. You
Speaker 5: go back you're walking down.
Speaker 4: Tunnels, You're finding all this gold and all this poisonous
Speaker 4: you know, mercury or something. You know, this was a
Speaker 4: hell of a like you said, five years, I get
Speaker 4: why it may have taken you five years. It was
Speaker 4: a hell of a journey you've been on with this thing.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you know, it's incredible.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: I went to you're talking about Tao t Wakan.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's easy to pronounce, man, last name bro.
Speaker 1: I had a practice, had a practice. It don't come
Speaker 1: that easy, you know, we're talking about this. This tunnel
Speaker 1: was the first one. It's just been discovered. It's it's
Speaker 1: over two thousand years old. And they found, you know,
Speaker 1: turquoise from Arizona. They found jade from Central America. So
Speaker 1: we were doing trade all up and down South America
Speaker 1: and the Americas. These were these were incredible empires, man.
Speaker 1: They were bigger than European empires. Thirty three million Incas,
Speaker 1: thirty million aztect million Mayas. They had running toilets with water,
Speaker 1: water flushing toilets before any country in Europe they we
Speaker 1: invented rubber, which in galvinization, Goodyear took credit for something
Speaker 1: he ain't do. And the Incas had binary code. That's
Speaker 1: how they kept their senses before computers. They had suspension bridges,
Speaker 1: they had anesthesia. They had brain surgery that was more
Speaker 1: successful than anything until a Civil war.
Speaker 5: I mean, who knew, Marshawan you know all that stuff?
Speaker 3: Man, Hell no, Look, I'm sitting over here like I'm
Speaker 3: watching the Discovery Channel right now. This motherfucker dropping so
Speaker 3: much motherfucking game, Like, God damn, this is an opportunity. Shiit,
Speaker 3: Just just give him a mic and lett him go,
Speaker 3: because Shiit, I feel like I'm gonna be at least
Speaker 3: five to ten percent smarter after this, after this show.
Speaker 3: So she keep going, big dog, it's any more facts
Speaker 3: you want to say it out, I'm here forward, man,
Speaker 3: She had keep educating. So now of your work, not
Speaker 3: I'm a fan of your work, but.
Speaker 6: But what I appreciate about you, John, And it seems
Speaker 6: like the guests we get on the show are very
Speaker 6: similar to you and Marshaun because you've always led, You've
Speaker 6: gotten it. Marshawn has been the same way your vocal
Speaker 6: you stand and again life is We always say life
Speaker 6: is short. We're on barrow of time. And if you
Speaker 6: don't speak your voice, John, then what are we doing? Gavin?
Speaker 6: I just had to hit a birthday. We're not as
Speaker 6: old as you yet, but we almost there.
Speaker 1: And so oh thanks a lot for that shout out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, hello the two.
Speaker 2: Brother Yeah, I'm sixty four.
Speaker 3: You couldn't you couldn't look at him.
Speaker 6: But anyways, the point John's we're on bar times. I
Speaker 6: love the way you're living. And let me ask you a question.
Speaker 6: What's next for you? I mean, the PBS stuff is
Speaker 6: so next level? Are you back into acting? Are you
Speaker 6: on Broadway now? But I mean, what's the next steps
Speaker 6: for you? The next few years?
Speaker 1: Uh? Yeah? I got an amazing movie coming out in
Speaker 1: April called Bob Tabbino Likes. We won the south By
Speaker 1: Southwest Audience Prize and Jury Prize. It is such a beautiful,
Speaker 1: feel good healing film. Roman crying oh my god at
Speaker 1: every screening.
Speaker 6: A little different than John Wick John, Yeah.
Speaker 1: John Wait makes you crying a different way. This was
Speaker 1: a healing movie. There's no beating up, there's no hitting.
Speaker 1: And then my play, My play is the biggest thing
Speaker 1: I've got right now. You know, I wrote this hoping
Speaker 1: this will be an American classic based on a true
Speaker 1: crime that happened in Long Island in the nineties.
Speaker 5: And what and you're you're literally in the middle of
Speaker 5: that right now, right.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, we go up. October eighteenth is my first performance.
Speaker 5: And what is it?
Speaker 4: I mean, is is there any having made it in
Speaker 4: your life or career? Are you just gonna be You're
Speaker 4: gonna you're gonna You're gonna run this thing through the tape?
Speaker 5: No ninety yard dash here, huh.
Speaker 1: No, man, I mean the lovely thing about acting is
Speaker 1: that you can go on till.
Speaker 2: Till they pull they take it the hook and they
Speaker 2: pull you up.
Speaker 3: You can.
Speaker 1: People have died on.
Speaker 2: Stage, you know. I mean, I don't want to die
Speaker 2: in the dage.
Speaker 4: But yeah, yeah, And what about and what about the
Speaker 4: producing and the and the directing. I mean, is that
Speaker 4: is that it doesn't does that have the feedback loop
Speaker 4: that being on there one man's show and just being
Speaker 4: out there all just exposed?
Speaker 5: The I mean is how do those things compare?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Wow, wow, it's so different. I mean, being on stage
Speaker 1: by yourself is so powerful. To have a whole entire
Speaker 1: house about fifteen hundred people every night for six months. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know it's quiet. You can hear pin dropped and
Speaker 1: they laugh, especially for Lamb. People becomes like church because
Speaker 1: they're crying, laughing, screaming, talking back to their home watching TV.
Speaker 2: It's a beautiful experience. Film is different, obviously.
Speaker 1: Film is about, you know, hitting some acting highs. You know,
Speaker 1: it's an acting high. You're just trying to hit these
Speaker 1: these beats. But stage and live performances like Church.
Speaker 3: Because Doug won't he won't let that ship die down
Speaker 3: at all. But I have been, uh, you know, getting
Speaker 3: into my acting bag a little bit. Is there anything
Speaker 3: that she would tell me, just as far as like,
Speaker 3: I mean from my biggest thing is like when I
Speaker 3: get them scripts and then I see all them lines
Speaker 3: and ship like oh shit. Yeah, Like, is there any
Speaker 3: advice you could give to me? Just like just like grassroots,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean to you. I mean to
Speaker 3: keep me going and keep my mind right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, man, you can make it. I mean, nobody
Speaker 1: starts out great in acting, man. Every everybody works their
Speaker 1: ass off to get to to this place. Brandle worked
Speaker 1: his ass off study with the best teachers, so did
Speaker 1: James Dean, so did Mark Ruffalo, so did Trump, and
Speaker 1: everybody study all the great studied the near Paccino. They
Speaker 1: studied hard, so they nobody's born naturally a acting, you
Speaker 1: become one.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: So I would say, get a great coach. I would say,
Speaker 1: read out life out as much as you can, like
Speaker 1: get a script that you love from a movie, and
Speaker 1: and learn those monologues and practice it all the time
Speaker 1: until it becomes second nature, until you get used to
Speaker 1: saying lines that that you haven't thought. You know, because
Speaker 1: my daughter wants been actress, and I told that, beat
Speaker 1: out loud as much as you can, get your favorite
Speaker 1: movie monologues, and work on the memorizing, because then you
Speaker 1: learn how to turn dialogue that's not yours into yours.
Speaker 3: So I think I'm gonna start with the uh with
Speaker 3: the piss do it.
Speaker 1: I like to see a film.
Speaker 2: I want to see it.
Speaker 1: I want to see it.
Speaker 3: I mean I really have been uh having fun doing it.
Speaker 3: It's just you know, I'm so competitive. So you know,
Speaker 3: when I get to a point where it's like all
Speaker 3: right and it's challenging, and like it turned me up,
Speaker 3: like I gotta get on this ship. I gotta figure
Speaker 3: this shit out like yeah, I mean, and then you know,
Speaker 3: just the way that I've been going about it, Like
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, I'll just read it, read it,
Speaker 3: read it.
Speaker 1: Just drilling, drill, drill and drilling, dude. That's that's it, brother,
Speaker 1: I mean that's the only thing. I mean, I'm older,
Speaker 1: so I have to drill a little harder than I
Speaker 1: used to. I used to have a photographic memory, but
Speaker 1: it's kind of clouded now it's got a less tap
Speaker 1: on it. So yeah, drilling, baby, there's nothing better than drilling,
Speaker 1: doing your lines while you're running on a treadmill or
Speaker 1: doing something else. Drilling is the only way. And dude,
Speaker 1: you got a great personality, so I mean you're a
Speaker 1: natural fulfilmed that way with shit.
Speaker 3: Man. I appreciate it, because Damn, sometime that ship that
Speaker 3: shit get a little hard. Then I have to go
Speaker 3: back into my mindset of like damn, when shit got
Speaker 3: hard for me on the field, or when I was
Speaker 3: at practice, or when I was working out getting ready
Speaker 3: to go to training camp, mini camp or ohas or
Speaker 3: any of that, knowing that I got to come in yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean ready to perform. Like so when I get
Speaker 3: out there, on on set, it's like, Okay, I got
Speaker 3: them them same kind of nerves that I had. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you when a good time for game time. Yeah, then
Speaker 3: I'm just you know, focusing on shit that I don't
Speaker 3: even know. And then it's been to a point where
Speaker 3: it's like I can you know, uh, the actors that
Speaker 3: I'm working with, like, you know, I could say their
Speaker 3: lines and then I'm right into my ship. So I mean,
Speaker 3: it's been it's been an interesting transition for me, but
Speaker 3: I have been enjoying it. But just to get some
Speaker 3: you know, some words a knowledge from you, especially considering now,
Speaker 3: you know, just not looking at you as an actor
Speaker 3: and seeing you as a historian with all these fucking
Speaker 3: numbers and all these facts, like it makes me believe like, okay,
Speaker 3: well shit, you know what I mean growing up you
Speaker 3: know said he was a fighter, you know, I mean
Speaker 3: standing on business and the ship that you represent, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, damn, you know what, I'm walking that path
Speaker 3: and you know what I mean, It's something that you know,
Speaker 3: I like to say, is nothing new under the old moon,
Speaker 3: And why not look at the individuals who laid down
Speaker 3: the foundation, you know what I mean before you and
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, walk that path like you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, it ain't gonna be nothing new
Speaker 3: that I'm out here doing. There's been plenty of athletes
Speaker 3: that transition from you know, playing their sport and then
Speaker 3: getting into uh, the industry. So man, I appreciate that.
Speaker 3: And then you know, just from the standpoint of you know,
Speaker 3: I've seen uh, this entertainment space eat up a lot
Speaker 3: of people. Well help shit eat them up like fuck.
Speaker 3: Like I mean, I've been somebody that pride my cell phone,
Speaker 3: sticking to my guns, and represent who I am at
Speaker 3: all times. No matter what room I walk in, I'm
Speaker 3: still gonna be the same that I've always right right,
Speaker 3: So keeping that type of mindset like and wanting to
Speaker 3: grow in it, do you see any problem with that?
Speaker 6: Think?
Speaker 1: I think you're still right, I mean, trying to stay
Speaker 1: to your core friends and you're keeping who you really
Speaker 1: are because the business nobody prepares you for show biz.
Speaker 2: The ups and downs are are so crazy.
Speaker 1: Nothing prepares you for that because you go way up,
Speaker 1: but then you got to come back down, and those
Speaker 1: those ups and downs messed a lot of people up,
Speaker 1: and nobody prepared tells you that you got to be
Speaker 1: prepared for like hyper people, everybody loving you and then
Speaker 1: everybody hating you, and everything's in public and every it's
Speaker 1: it's it's rough.
Speaker 6: Well, John, that's that's that's fascinating because obviously in sports,
Speaker 6: you know, you have the transition from college to the
Speaker 6: pros and football leagust and you and then your career
Speaker 6: kind of plateau is a little bit and you get
Speaker 6: older and you kind of it's an eight to twelve
Speaker 6: of your career for the top players, right, and you
Speaker 6: kind of know the transition. But entertainment, like to yourself,
Speaker 6: I mean, you don't know which ways to go. You
Speaker 6: could be on top of the world one day, next
Speaker 6: you know, you don't get college, no jobs. I mean,
Speaker 6: how you're right, it would eat a lot of people up.
Speaker 6: That'd be another story I for you to tell at
Speaker 6: some point, because no one talks about the underbelly of
Speaker 6: the people that get eating alive.
Speaker 1: Correct, Yeah, yeah, Because I mean if you start reading
Speaker 1: your reviews and you start believing that then you got
Speaker 1: to believe the good. Then you're gonna have to believe
Speaker 1: the bad. Because nobody gets consistently good reviews, you know,
Speaker 1: so when you get a bad review, then you gotta
Speaker 1: believe it. Then you gotta start believing that you suck.
Speaker 1: And then how do you how do you soothe yourself?
Speaker 1: You know, you find the wrong friends, you find the
Speaker 1: wrong people of alcohol, the drugs start coming back.
Speaker 2: How to feel better yourself? Medicaid?
Speaker 1: And then then you got this you know, roller coaster
Speaker 1: life that's not healthy.
Speaker 3: Well, I had a situation like that. I say, I
Speaker 3: think like year three when I was in Buffalo, before
Speaker 3: I had got traded uh to Seattle, and it was
Speaker 3: more like, I'll fuck him. We always knew he was
Speaker 3: a thug. We knew he wasn't shit. Oh he ain't
Speaker 3: gonna make it, this, that and the third, and I'll
Speaker 3: fuck him. He's washed up or he can't run the ball.
Speaker 3: No more this, that and all that type of shit.
Speaker 3: And then as soon as I got up out of
Speaker 3: that environment and I got traded to Seattle and then
Speaker 3: went ahead and created an earthquake. You feel what I'm
Speaker 3: talking about? So alone at the time, I remember that.
Speaker 3: I remember that vividly. And I just because I'm not
Speaker 3: somebody who big after like the games, like to go
Speaker 3: watch ESPN, you know, look at my stats, this, that
Speaker 3: and the third I was more a team situation, like, shit,
Speaker 3: if we win, regardless whateverever, I had one hundred yards
Speaker 3: or I had ten yards. If we won, shit, I'm
Speaker 3: partying like it's nineteen ninety nine. And then if we lost,
Speaker 3: I'm in the lab trying to figure out, Okay, what
Speaker 3: was it that I that I didn't do that I
Speaker 3: could do better? Or I did this pretty good, but
Speaker 3: how can I do this even better? To the point
Speaker 3: where because I you know what I mean, I don't
Speaker 3: really like losing, but I mean I think it was
Speaker 3: something that my mom taught me after my first game
Speaker 3: when I was playing pop warning football. We lost the
Speaker 3: game and I was mad as hell. I'm crying and shit,
Speaker 3: and my mom was like, why the fuck you crying?
Speaker 3: Like where you get to go out here and do
Speaker 3: this again next week? And I'm like, oh, we got
Speaker 3: another game. Yeah, you got about ten more games, like
Speaker 3: why did you trip? Like you get to you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, you get to go redeem yourself with
Speaker 3: And the thing was, I didn't have a bad game,
Speaker 3: but it was just the fact that we lost. And
Speaker 3: ever since then, you know, I kind of took the
Speaker 3: bad with the good and the good with the bad.
Speaker 3: And I always just harped on that mindset with how
Speaker 3: I grew, and no matter what, if it was a
Speaker 3: winner or loss, I always looked at it like, Okay,
Speaker 3: what could I have done better? I mean, how could
Speaker 3: I have helped the team in a better way? You know,
Speaker 3: I mean, oh, we got a sack? What could I
Speaker 3: have done to help this offensive linement? You know, I
Speaker 3: mean stay on that block to where the quarterback didn't
Speaker 3: get hit or you know, I mean just little little
Speaker 3: specific details that you know mainly don't mean nothing to
Speaker 3: a lot of people, but it's just some shit that
Speaker 3: goes a long way, and it could be the designing
Speaker 3: factor on if you win or if you lose. But
Speaker 3: you know, within this space, because I guess what it
Speaker 3: feels like to me is like when you on set
Speaker 3: and individuals know me, and it's more so like they
Speaker 3: look at me like, oh shit, that's more shan football player,
Speaker 3: Like they got this kind of like oh he's he's
Speaker 3: beast mode and this and that. The third So, if
Speaker 3: it's something that I'm doing on set, and if it
Speaker 3: don't read right, like I come from a background, you're
Speaker 3: not doing your job or what you're supposed to do.
Speaker 3: Somebody come and tell you, hey, what the fuck is
Speaker 3: you doing? Like, no, you're supposed to hit the hole
Speaker 3: like you're doing all that dancing in the back, hit
Speaker 3: the hole and get down field right now. But on
Speaker 3: set it's like, oh no, that was good, let's let's
Speaker 3: just try it again, and it's really no direction more.
Speaker 6: Sean are interesting And I never asked you us Are
Speaker 6: you because of you and your personality and all that?
Speaker 6: Are anybody on the set? Are anybody scared to tell
Speaker 6: you the truth?
Speaker 1: I'd be afraid to tell you. Don't want to hurt
Speaker 1: people's feelings either, man, you don't want to. There's also
Speaker 1: negative feedback for acting sometimes shuts people down even more
Speaker 1: so you have to you know, you.
Speaker 2: Have to nurture people into their talent.
Speaker 1: You know you have to.
Speaker 2: And then then with acting, you we all make mistakes,
Speaker 2: so you need more sins what we have takes because
Speaker 2: people make mistakes.
Speaker 3: But I'm more of a guy that's like, if I'm
Speaker 3: doing something wrong, tell me I'm doing it wrong, so
Speaker 3: that way I can not do that shit no more
Speaker 3: rather than you just said, Okay, we're gonna do another take,
Speaker 3: and if you don't tell me, I'm doing nothing wrong.
Speaker 3: Then I think I'm I'm doing what I'm supposed to do.
Speaker 3: But if it come to the fact where it's not
Speaker 3: and I'm the reason why we're doing the take over,
Speaker 3: it's like, all right, well, who the fuck who not
Speaker 3: giving what they're supposed to give? And then sudden you
Speaker 3: find out is you was like, oh shit, the well,
Speaker 3: why the fuck you didn't tell me I was doing
Speaker 3: the wrong shit? So then I could have did something different.
Speaker 1: Acting is not like sports.
Speaker 2: You can't call people out like that.
Speaker 1: We don't.
Speaker 2: We don't do that. It'd be great, it'd be.
Speaker 1: Great if he could all be like that, but not
Speaker 1: there's so many egos. People get brutales and they stuck.
Speaker 1: I had that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I don't have that eight more, Sean Brouh,
Speaker 3: What the fuck is you giving me right now? We
Speaker 3: need less of what the fuck you're giving us and
Speaker 3: more of what we want. Okay, my bad ship?
Speaker 1: Yeah, been doing that.
Speaker 3: You ain't tell me I was doing then, rule, So
Speaker 3: I just thought we was good. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I don't get any of this feedback in pology. We
Speaker 5: know none of this.
Speaker 6: Nobody else at Gavin John.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm I'm gonna tell your ass Yevin, What the
Speaker 3: fuck you're doing?
Speaker 4: It's universal love. That's why I'm in politics. Just universal love.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm conditional love, additional.
Speaker 4: I'm curious, you know so many of us in life.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm thinking of the sports construct. You know,
Speaker 4: we have coaches, we have mentors people. I mean, do
Speaker 4: you still have people in your life that independent of
Speaker 4: a director or a project that you're involved with and
Speaker 4: you have situational partners?
Speaker 5: Do you still have do you still have coach?
Speaker 4: Do you still someone I mean, is there an old
Speaker 4: acting coach that takes a look at your tapes and
Speaker 4: calls and says, man, I think you're slipping here a
Speaker 4: little bit, or hey brother, that was that was next level, dude.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely It's like think, I think of myself like
Speaker 1: as a tennis player, and I got to be playing
Speaker 1: and I got to have a coach and he's got
Speaker 1: to keep me together and tight and I got to
Speaker 1: keep my game up. So yeah, I have my old
Speaker 1: act teacher, David Newer. I love him, and he keeps
Speaker 1: me tied and clean, you know, And I'm always reading
Speaker 1: scripts out loud, I'm doing zooms with other actors. I'm
Speaker 1: keeping my my skills sharp as fucking because you can't
Speaker 1: let your skills drop. You got to keep It's like
Speaker 1: EDDI sport, you gotta keep doing it. And this, this
Speaker 1: whole thing is a sport.
Speaker 6: John, who's your crew? Who's your crew in the business? Like,
Speaker 6: who do you have? Who's like your main If you
Speaker 6: got to call two or three buddies, who are the
Speaker 6: guys you're calling for vice counsel? Kick it with with whatever?
Speaker 1: I love Mark Buffalo, man, he's the most honest, caring
Speaker 1: You talk about the Hulk, Yeah, yeah, the whole Yeah,
Speaker 1: the hul Yeah, Yeah, he's fucking amazing. And Ethan Hawks
Speaker 1: also like an incredible guy. You can talk about anything.
Speaker 1: He's a great artist. Yeah, David harber Is. It's phenomenal
Speaker 1: and I love hanging with him. Makes me laugh as fuck.
Speaker 1: You know, there's some great folks out there, man, that's
Speaker 1: super talented, really humble. I like the humble motherfuckers who
Speaker 1: are talented. I don't like egos. I don't like vanity
Speaker 1: and be like that. It's not I don't have I
Speaker 1: don't have room for that ship.
Speaker 4: No, well, John, I mean and you know, as we close,
Speaker 4: that's a perfect I mean, John Doug was saying something
Speaker 4: earlier which I picked up about you and Marshawn. It's
Speaker 4: all about authenticity. Uh, It's all about character and uh.
Speaker 4: And I appreciate your authenticity. I appreciate who you've become
Speaker 4: in terms of being an activist and a leader, not
Speaker 4: just you know, one of our great and most outstanding entertainers,
Speaker 4: but someone that's that's providing you know, meaning and purpose
Speaker 4: and mission at a time when we need it more
Speaker 4: than we've ever needed it in our lives. So mad
Speaker 4: respect for you, man, Grateful for everything you're doing.
Speaker 3: Batman. Let me tell you something, Man. You could say
Speaker 3: real last motherfucker you.
Speaker 5: Last motherfucker motherfucker's shoes.
Speaker 3: Marshawan, the shoes, not the pandas you can throw that
Speaker 3: one in there every now and then. You could just
Speaker 3: you know, I mean to switch up the game a little,
Speaker 3: I will say.
Speaker 6: I will say, John is a realized motherfucker.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Big Hawks man, big Hogs, all, thank you John.
Speaker 2: He's thank you brother much love appreciate it, Jeeve